Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Cemil Bayik has called for struggle against the Turkish state in a heated tirade attacking President Erdogan.
“Peace and a solution are only possible through struggle,” he said, accusing Erdogan of furthering oppression against Kurds in Turkey. “Thus, whoever calls for anything other than struggle, is serving the aims of genocidal colonialism.” Bayik wrote the article in a piece translated by Kurdish ANF news agency and reprinted by website the Kurdish Question. It originally appeared in the Turkish newspapers Azadiya Welat and Yeni Özgür Politika, which target the country’s large Kurdish community.
The call is a bold show of fighting talk in a long and bloody conflict, that’s being complicated further by war in Syria and Iraq. Bayik is one of the five founding members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK, and its current leader. Recent interviews with the BBC and Vice News described him as “Turkey’s most wanted man”.
“The dominant mindset in Turkey denies Kurds and wants to eliminate them; this is state and government policy, therefore it is impossible to resolve the Kurdish issue with the current political parties and governments,” he wrote. “Thus, only through establishing a democratic administration in Turkey, via a struggle for democracy and freedom, can the Kurdish issue be solved.”
In April, Turkish president Erdogan ruled out dialogue with the Kurds after the PKK abandoned a delicate ceasefire. The deaths of 400 police and soldiers, and thousands of Kurds followed, and opposition groups say 500 to 1000 Turkish civilians may have been killed.
Both sides accuse the other of being unwilling partners for peace and continuing the cycle of violence.
In his essay, Bayik said the Kurdish leadership has shown that through localization of democracy it was possible to realise the rights of Kurdish people in Turkey without creating a new state, but claimed Erdogan was hell bent on destroying the Kurdish people.
“We have shown the most reasonable approaches, but it hasn't worked. In the current conditions, whoever thinks freedom and peace can be achieved without resistance, is fooling themselves and putting their neck out under the blade of genocidal colonialism.”
The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. It has close ties with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, which is perhaps ironically an ally of the US via its participation in the anti-Daesh Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Whether people will take heed of Bayik's passionate–but perhaps also vague–call for "struggle" remains to be seen.
BS
